Huawei, claim it the first mobile device manufacturer in the world to use an AI-powered smartphone to drive a car. The ‘RoadReader’ project pushes the boundaries of Huawei’s object recognition technology and puts the learning capabilities, speed and performance of its AI-powered devices to the test.

In a video, the Porsche driven by the Huawei smartphone recognizes a golden retriever and then swerves around the live dog.

Unlike other driverless cars, which simply detect obstacles Huawei has transformed a Porsche Panamera into a driverless vehicle that doesn’t just see, but crucially, understands its surroundings. This means that can it can distinguish between 1,000s of different objects including a cat and a dog, a ball or a bike and learn to take the most appropriate course of action.

Huawei’s ‘RoadReader’ project is taking advantage of the AI capabilities already in the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. The device uses AI to automatically recognize objects like cats, dogs, food, and other objects, to help people take pictures like a pro.

Most autonomous cars currently being developed rely on the computing power of purpose-built chips developed by third party technology providers. However, as part of its ongoing mission to make the impossible possible, Huawei has used technology already available in its smartphones, demonstrating its superior functionality and ability to stand up to even the most advanced technology developed for use in self-driving cars.

“Our smartphone is already outstanding at object recognition. We wanted to see if in a short space of time we could teach it to not only drive a car, but to use its AI capabilities to see certain objects, and be taught to avoid them” said Andrew Garrihy, Chief Marketing Officer, Huawei Western Europe. “If our technology is intelligent enough to achieve this in just 5 weeks – what else can it make possible?”

Huawei will be showcasing the RoadReader project and the vehicle’s capabilities at a two-day event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (MWC) from 26th to 27th February 2018. Delegates will be invited to test ‘drive’ the car themselves, teaching it to identify and manoeuvre around certain objects.

Baidu and Huawei have partnered to work on mproved voice and image recognition on smart devices, and will build a consumer augmented reality (AR) software and hardware ecosystem.

Huawei smartphones are not sold through American mobile carriers because it is believed that Chinese companies may be spying on Americans.